The objective of vaccination is to provide effective immunity by establishing adequate levels of antibody and a primed population of cells that can rapidly expand on renewed contact with antigen. The first contact with antigen during vaccination must not be injurious to the recipient and thus usually consists of pathogenically-deficient antigen.
A frequent difficulty with active immunization protocols is that the vaccine antigen does not possess sufficient immunogenicity to promote a strong immune response, and therefore a sufficient level of protection against subsequent challenge by the same antigen. In addition, certain antigens may elicit only weak cell-mediated or antibody response. For many antigens, both a strong humoral response and a strong cell-mediated response is desirable.
For decades, researchers have experimented with diverse compounds to increase the immunogenicity of vaccines. Immunopotentiators, also known as adjuvants, of vaccines are compositions of matter that facilitate a strong immune response to a vaccine. In addition, the relatively weak immunogenicity of certain novel recombinant antigens has required adjuvants to be more potent. Vaccine adjuvants have different modes of action, affecting the immune response both quantitatively and qualitatively. Such modes of action can be by mobilizing T cells, acting as depots and altering lymphocyte circulation so that these cells remain localized in draining lymph nodes. They may also serve to focus antigen at the site of immunization, thereby allowing antigen specific T cells and B cells to interact more efficiently with antigen-presenting cells. They may also stimulate proliferation and differentiation of T cells and have effects on B cells, such as enhancing the production of different Ig isotypes. Further, adjuvants may stimulate and affect the behavior of antigen-presenting cells, particularly macrophages, rendering them more effective for presenting antigen to T cells and B cells.
Dendritic cells are a rare and heterogeneous cell population with distinctive morphology and a widespread tissue distribution. A discussion of the dendritic cell system and its role in immunogenicity is provided by Steinman, R. M., Annu. Rev. Immunol., 9:271–296 (1991), incorporated herein by reference. Dendritic cells display an unusual cell surface and can be characterized by the presence of the cell surface markers CD1a+, CD4+, CD14− CD86+, CD11c+, DEC-205+, CD14+ or HLA-DR+. Dendritic cells have a high capacity for sensitizing MHC-restricted T cells and provide an effective pathway for presenting antigens to T cells in situ, both self-antigens during T cell development and foreign antigens during immunity. Thus, there is growing interest in using dendritic cells ex vivo as tumor or infectious disease vaccine adjuvants. See, for example, Romani, et al., J. Exp. Med., 180:83 (1994). The use of dendritic cells as immunostimulatory agents has been limited due to the low frequency of dendritic cells in peripheral blood, the limited accessibility to lymphoid organs and the dendritic cells' terminal state of differentiation. Dendritic cells originate from CD34+ bone marrow progenitors, and the proliferation and maturation of dendritic cells can be enhanced by the cytokines GM-CSF (sargramostim, Leukine®, Immunex Corporation, Seattle, Wash.), TNF-α, c-kit ligand (also known as stem cell factor (SCF), steel factor (SF), or mast cell growth factor (MGF)) and interleukin-4. Therefore, an agent that stimulated the generation of large numbers of functionally mature dendritic cells in vivo or in vitro would be of wide importance.